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BABY ESSENTIALS

8200_When we found out we were expecting, I was excited. After a few months of stalling to start a family, we finally made the serious decision to say no more travelling and try and make a baby. To be honest, I thought it would take us close to a year before we would end up pregnant, so to find out we achieved it in four months was a wonderful surprise.  However, there was a second surprise in store for us, there were more than two hearts beating in my body. Yup, we were expecting twins.

I quickly started researching what items I needed to get and reached out to all my friends who were already mommies for their input. Each of them gave me a list of items they recommended and it didn’t take me long to feel overwhelmed because I suddenly realized, I needed to get double of everything! Shortly after,  I pretty much got everything my friends recommended. You’ve heard me say many times that time is the most important currency, and how you utilize it is essential to your well being. When you’re a mom of twins, time is something you have zero control over so having the right items is essential.6800 5504

Today I wanted to give you a simple and clear breakdown of items I can’t live without. These items are I use on a daily basis and are very important to make sure my day goes by smoothly with the twins. Now before you go through the list, I know everyone mom and baby is different but please use this list as a guideline to help you get prepared for your new journey into motherhood.

CRIBS and BASSINET:
bassinet

Before the twins were born, my husband and I planned on having them sleep in our room in their bassinets. Having the bassinets close to our bed made it easy to reach them when they were crying at night. I bought the Restoration Hardware bassinet for the twins and loved it. I love the fact that there is storage underneath the bassinet so I can tuck away a change of clothing, extra diapers/wipes and swaddling blankets. I also loved the fact that there are wheels on the bassinet making it easy for me to rock them back and forth or take them to another room without putting stress on my stitches (this was great when it came to wheeling them into my bathroom so I had two bassinets there while I showered…I know TMI, but my babies were rarely ever in sync with their naps/feeding/changing).

After my stitches had healed and the twins were about three months old, we moved them to their cribs and slowly started helping them get into an established sleeping pattern.

Here are three other bassinets we considered getting for our twins: 

CRIB RAIL COVERS:

I am going to confess, we got this a little in the game but it is one purchase I splurged in and it is worth every penny. Crib rail covers. Reyha started standing before she was nine months, and it didn’t take her long before she left teeth marks all over the four railings of her crib. Every morning I would go to her crib to wake her up, and her mouth was covered with grey and white paint. So if your little one is starting to learn how to stand, nab these crib rails for their crib to protect them from ingesting the paint on their cribs (and potentially getting any slivers in their mouth).

We used these crib rails and they work perfectly!


make sure you grab 2 of these (they pack them individually)

you only need one pack of this (they pack 2 in one package)


BOTTLES and SIPPY CUPS:

When it came to choosing which brand of bottles to use for my babies, we went with AVENT. We chose AVENT for 5 reasons:
– they had glass bottles available in both small and large sizes
– very low probability of micro-plastics being introduced into the babies milk when I warm their bottle
– easy to upgrade the nipples when the babies migrate from stage 1 all the way to 4, and sippy cup silicon nubs
– their bottle warmer heats up their bottles super fast (this is incredibly helpful when you are doing a late night feed…or feeding two)
– they have medium and large size bottle sterilizer that can accommodate their bottles

The beautiful thing about AVENT is that they also produce sippy cups so if your babies like the feel of their old bottles, you can easily screw in the sippy cup lid and voila – easy transition to weening them off the bottle. It took the twins two days to make the successful switch. 

DIAPER DISPOSAL SYSTEM:

We used the Diaper Genie as our diaper disposal system and it was a life saver to keep our home smelling fresh and clean, especially when you have two babies that poop A LOT! Here are two solid pieces of advice I can give you when you invest in a diaper disposal system, if you have a home – get two (one in the nursery and one in the common room) and get a few arm & hammer diaper puck to you don’t smell what they did the last time you opened the pail.

CREAMS:

We bought a wide variety of creams for Reyha and Zayn because their skin is always dry. They were born in winter so you can imagine our need to keep the house constantly heated to keep the babies warm. There were times we had to even put the fireplace on because they still found the home cold (even though we were basically boiling and wearing our summer clothes while it was a blizzard outside the house). We found the twins skin worked well with Aveeno for their skin and heal up those rough dry patches. Burts Bees and Aquaphor was a life saver when it came to protecting their skin from diaper rashes.

SWADDLERS and BURPING CLOTHS:

When we were expecting, we told ourselves that we would never swaddle our babies. Fast forward to the day they were born, the first thing the nurses and doctors did after they took them out of my belly (other than wipe them clean, weigh them, etc) was swaddle them. It helped to calm them immediately. We tried on multiple occasions to get them familiar with not being swaddled but that didn’t last long. In the end, we caved in and had them swaddled for the first five months. Within a few weeks, we switched from swaddling blankets (because they were cumbersome) to swaddlers (that made it super easy to swaddle them).

Another item we couldn’t get enough of was burping cloths. One thing I don’t miss about the first four months is having them constantly throw up on me. I remember there were days where I had some of it on my hair and I would patiently wait for my husband to come home from work so I could take a shower. Burping cloths were a lifesaver in helping me clean up the mess the twins made on themselves or me, plus the Burts Beese cloth were perfect because they were super soft and perfect to swipe up the mess on their beautiful faces gently.

DIAPERS and WIPES:

There are a wide variety of diaper brands out there, but we personally used the HONEST Company. They had the best leak guard protection and were perfect whenever they let a big one out. Their diapers were strong and reliable, plus they were great for Zayn’s sensitive skin.

One great advice I can give you about diapers, get a subscription setup. We used Amazon and like clockwork, we had two boxes of diapers arrive in the first week of every month (along with wipes and diaper genie refills). It will save you a lot making last minute trips to the store to pick up an emergency box of diapers PLUS you can get 10-15% off if you have subscription setup. Another great advice I can give you, get lots and lots of Newborn diapers if you are expecting. The first month, your baby will go through 10-12 diapers a day…imagine what you go through when you have twins. enough said.

For wipes, we used PAMPER wipes BUT for the first month, we actually used soft paper towels and warm water. We were advised in our prenatal group and by our doctor that for the first month, we should avoid using traditional baby wipes as they had some chemicals that could potentially be harsh on their skin.

 

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4 Comments

  1. Farhana
    May 20, 2018 / 5:17 pm

    This list is amazing! Thanks for sharing the crib rail guards, I’ve been meaning to ask you where you got yours but keep forgetting haha
    Farhana

  2. May 21, 2018 / 5:56 am

    Lovely guide! I don’t have kids (though i do work with them) and i just love looking at cribs, haha, they’re so cute!

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